Weak Are Slaughtered and Devoured At Politico

Jesus, working at Politico.com sounds basically like joining the brutal, conniving gang of "Others" on ABC island thriller Lost, judging from an internal memo that just surfaced. Click for highlights.

The New Republic's Gabe Sherman tracked down the memo for his big cover story on the political news website. In it, political editor Mike "Ben" Allen does his best to convince staff they must hunt down the news and rip out its still-beating heart, to eat. If not, they, their families and Politico will all starve in the street, where they will be hunted by the Washington Post and the rest of the Main Stream Media, for scalps. (See image excerpt above/left.)

Allen also sets forth a "POWER EQUATION," which actually isn't an equation at all but rather the pedestrian idea that political reporters should make a study of, uh, politics.

The full memo (PDF) is rather insane and scary in a way that can't be good for staff morale. But it's true that the media landscape has become incredibly brutal and is probably getting worse, and it's refreshing to see an editor rumored to have $250,000-per-year writers on his payroll level with them about reality rather than prattle on about opera music, the glorious past and how everyone hopefully won't have to endure very much pain.